The woman my age in Wethers, with two blokes at the table, dips her head to sleep. She slides herself onto the floor, where she curls herself around one of her friends' chairs, the better to sleep.
"You alright?" one of her company asks, not as a question, and carries on talking to his mate.
She starts vomiting, wide-mouthed volumes of clear liquid, until the landlord, at the end of his patience with her friends' ineffectual efforts at getting her to stand up, yanks her to her feet and directs her to the door.
Someone I vaguely know at the next table starts talking about Carol, with whom he used to work. "She was quite popular, Carol. We called her Chips." "Why?" "Chips. Goes with everything."
Thursday, and I have one day at my favourite paid job, at The Big House, with Sexy Ex-Boss. An afternoon gilding the villa ready to receive the judge and his clerk. The judge arrives and after I serve a muffin and tea -- doilies and a tray -- he settles down in the wide open reception room to work on his case, which leaves me free to sit and do nothing in the kitchen.
Afterwards, the clerk is keen to engage me in some of the wine. A tense newcomer clerk arrives, who is staying one night, and gets into a panic when she discovers that the sandwiches for "Her Ladyship" tomorrow haven't been made. I go down to the kitchen to make them myself, but she finds me there and tells me to put everything back, saying she'll do them herself. She says it with a show of annoyance, but pleased to have control.
Sexy Ex-Boss, who lives in an apartment on the top floor, texts me and invites me up for a drink. The telly is on, inanely, and when she goes to get the coke I turn it down. "They'll be talking about us now, downstairs." I'm enjoying myself, whilst thinking that doing coke at gone midnight before getting up for work at six isn't good preparation for entertaining Mel the following evening.
I get a phone call from the Ministry of Discipline and Punish, saying that my vetting has been completed, confirming my job, to start on Monday week. The wages are only £300 p.a. more than what I get from cleaning toilets, but I've been promised it'll be reliable, interesting work. I'm surprised I got it, what with one self-written reference from a cafe which never existed, and their access to the more accurate records of my criminally spotted past.
Once I start working there, I want to get my own place. It'll take up a large proportion of my income, but I'm tired of composing my face as I open the front door. As if I give a shit about how anyone's day has gone.
My weekend of having the house to myself arrives. I can breathe, walk around without worrying about my footsteps. It's liberating, but I take two Sildenafil as insurance. Mel arrives, and we paw each other, my cock chemically stiff. I serve her an unpleasant soup which I botched together from what I had in, which produced a sludge of red cabbage which I tried to rescue, and made worse, with some vinegary horseradish sauce. "Don't worry looby, it's not the food I'm here for."
The following morning, I am in the shower. Nude and wet, I am interrupted by a phone call from a man who has kindly offered to deliver a two-bed settee to mine for free, from a recycling site. I manhandle it upstairs by myself. My room stinks of cigarette smoke. I open the windows to their most gaping extent, wash the clothes I was wearing and put the ones in the wardrobe on the line.
She rings. "I've got an idea looby. Why don't we do something domestic today? Maybe we could cook together. Just have a nice afternoon without drinking a bottle of wine each." I'm worried, thinking I've overstepped some mark.
She makes a delicious tomato sauce for pasta. Everything's cordial, but it's important that I establish that she can't smoke in the house again. It's too much effort for me, washing and airing and de-fumigating. Smokers are blind to how they spread their smell. I'm relieved when she anticipates this, and says that she'll only smoke outside. We go to my room.Whilst there's room for improvement, we have the best sex in our short history on the new settee.
Today, Wendy rings and wants to know about it all, in a sexual detail that surprises me. "Have you had oral sex?" she says, repeating it over a croaky mobile connection.
Then a minute later, Mel: "I've put you into boyfriend/romance status...hope that's alright X" "Fucking hell, its more than alright Mel xxx"
She’s a trooper to get through Vinegar and Cabbage Soup. What delights might happen if I make her something nice?